The terrible injury often overlooked in domestic violence

IT’S hard to understand how someone could do what Anj Barker’s boyfriend did to her. But her most significant injury is often overlooked. WARNING: Graphic.

Ginger Gorman

NewsComAuOctober 22, 20154:01pm

‘Oh my God. What has he done?’Source:Supplied

WARNING: Graphic images

IT’S the late night phone call that every parent dreads. A police officer is on the line. Come quickly, the officer says, something terrible has happened to your child.

This is how Ian and Helen Barker, along with their son Glenn, found themselves driving from their home in the Victorian town of Benalla to Wangaratta Hospital just before 11pm on March 7, 2002.

The Barkers’ vivacious and sporty 16-year-old daughter, Anj, had been brutally bashed by her erratic and controlling ex-boyfriend* on the grounds of Benalla’s local high school.

When they arrived at the hospital, a doctor advised them “not to go and see her” because Anj’s condition was so bad. The feeling Helen had was “indescribable”.

“At one stage a nurse came out, just not long after we had arrived, and handed me her necklace, which was covered in blood.

“I can remember just standing there holding it. Looking at it and thinking: ‘Oh my God. What has he done?’,” Helen says.

Ignoring the doctor’s advice, the family waited to see Anj. Meanwhile, medical staff were urgently working to stabilise her before she could be airlifted by helicopter to Royal Melbourne Hospital.

Helen then overheard a conversation that will stay with her forever.

“The police had rang and a doctor had been called out to speak to the police. The doctor said: ‘No, she’s not dead yet’,” Helen recalls.

News_Image_File: Anj Barker was bashed beyond recognition.

“I nearly collapsed,” she says, adding, “the police apparently wanted to know whether he [Anj’s ex-boyfriend] was going to be charged with assault or murder.”

When the Barkers finally saw their beloved daughter, she was unrecognisable. Her head was swollen and she was covered in blood and bruises. Anj’s head had been hit against a steel bench multiple times. She had been strangled and kicked and her face had been stomped on, smashing her jaw and fracturing her skull.

“There was tubes everywhere,” Helen says, and “her ear was really swollen and there was blood running out of her ear.”

Another nurse told the family this wasn’t just blood but brain fluid too and they should prepare for the worst.

Anj didn’t die from her horrific injuries but instead, embarked on a long and often painful recovery. She spent eight weeks in hospital, four months in rehab and another two years in a nursing home. It took her five years to learn to talk again.

The severity of Anj’s injuries and her courage in speaking out against domestic violence, have led to national and international recognition.

News_Image_File: ‘There was tubes everywhere’. It took Anj five years to learn to talk again.

But researchers suspect that most brain injuries caused by domestic violence fly under the radar.

According to a 2007 study by American neuropsychologist Dr Martha Banks, up to 94 per cent of female domestic violence victims seeking medical help sustain facial injuries.

“It is difficult to seriously injure the head or face without simultaneously injuring the brain,” Dr Banks writes.

Despite this, “traumatic brain injury is often overlooked as a consequence of those injuries,” she states in the paper.

Deborah Byrne, executive officer of Brain Injury Tasmania, is fighting to make this hidden disability visible.

“For many people if you can’t see it, then it doesn’t exist.

“Because of that lack of public awareness, then it’s just that unknown quantity of how many victims of domestic violence victims actually acquire a brain injury,” she says.

“There’s a lot of stigma that’s attached to brain injury already,” Ms Byrne continues, but “for women to have to explain to others that their brain injury has to do with violence … that can be quite difficult or even unthinkable.”

Australian neuropsychologist Dr Janine Martin says many of the common facets of domestic violence such as throttling, blows to the head and neck, concussion and loss of consciousness can all cause brain injury.

For example, in a situation where a person is “thrown around a lot and thrown up against a wall, then hit and they fall to the ground, there’s going to be a lot of movement of the brain inside the skull,” Dr Martin says.

“That’s where you get the traumatic brain injury,” she explains, which “can lead to quite devastating effects.”

Dr Martin believes a brain injury suffered by a domestic violence victim may affect their ability to leave the perpetrator because it can impair a person’s “ability to problem solve and to be able to effectively manage any information that goes into your brain”.

In a few weeks Anj Barker turns 30. Using her slow and deliberate voice, she says that her goals are to “keep getting better and improving and being happy”.

Smiling widely, Anj is pragmatic about her life.

“It’s just how it is,” she says and goes on to explain that she’s started working at a major bank two days a week and hopes to get married one day.

She yawns many times during our hour-long interview and Helen explains that fatigue is an ongoing symptom of brain injury.

“That’s the thing about brain injury, if Anj doesn’t continue her therapy every day she can lose what’s she’s gained. It’s a lifelong journey,” Helen says.

Another possible result of brain injury is depression. It’s often seen as a mental illness, caused by being in a violent relationship. But some experts ponder whether this may be a secondary consequence of traumatic brain injury.

News_Image_File: Jo Lake refuses to feel sorry for herself.

Jo Lake, 35, was just two years old when she was savagely beaten by her teenage mother’s then-partner, resulting in head injuries.

“They originally thought I would be a quadriplegic,” Jo says, “they said that I would never walk, never talk or never see again.”

“I just try and keep myself busy and that’s why I don’t actually start getting down or feeling depressed,” she says.

Jo laughs easily and refuses to feel sorry for herself. As a child, she was fostered by loving family who later adopted her. She forgave her perpetrator long ago and this accepting attitude is the same approach she takes to her injuries.

“I’m not ashamed to have what I have. It’s hindered me in some ways, but I’m definitely not ashamed of having brain damage. I wouldn’t be me if I didn’t,” she says.

News_Image_File: Anj Barker was an Australia Day ambassador along with domestic violence campaigner Rosie Batty. Picture: Jay Town

Dr Martin pointed to research from America investigating footballers who started playing at a young age and suffered multiple concussions.

“In some cases it’s led to dementia,” she says.

Ms Bryne is calling on State and Federal Governments to put the same resources into brain injury caused by domestic violence as brain injury acquired by playing sport.

“The prevalence of brain injury in terms of domestic violence is much higher,” she says, but the corresponding “support and services” are not in place.

Together Dr Martin and Ms Byrne are in the early stages of developing a simple tool so that Tasmanian frontline workers who frequently come into contact with domestic violence victims can screen clients for the likelihood of brain injury. It’s likely to be similar to those already used in the United States.

Ms Byrne also hopes to implement awareness training for these workers.

“The evidence is out there. It’s time to stop looking at the research. It’s time to start doing something about it,” she says.

If you need support or counselling for domestic or family violence issues, call 1800 737 732 (1800 RESPECT). It’s a 24/7 national service, so it doesn’t matter where you live.

* The family wishes not to name Anj’s assailant in this story.

Ginger Gorman is an award winning print and radio journalist, and a 2006 World Press Institute Fellow. Follow her on twitter: @freshchilli